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Show Moab's Howard BaSsley Continues Story of Local Uranium History Editor's Note The following fol-lowing is the concluding portion of H. W. Balsley's comments on early uranium uran-ium developments in this area. The excerpt was taken ta-ken from' the speech he made a short time ago to the local Section of the AIME. "In the spring of 1934, I entered into a contract with the Vitro Manufacturing Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania," said Mr. Balsley. His con-ract con-ract provided that he da-liver da-liver ore running a minimum of 1.50 percent in uranium oxide and a minimum of 5 per cent in vanadium oxide. "Nowadays," he said, "we are real pleased if we can hold up the minimum grade of our uranium ore to .20 of one per cent, but we did used to find a lot of ore of much higher grade." He recounted re-counted how he actually shipped to Vitro from Polar Mesa, 34 50-ton carloads of ore averaging 1.57 per cent in uranium oxide and 7.35 per cent in vanadium oxide. He also had other high grade shipments from the Yellow Circle and Snowflake-Sunflower Snowflake-Sunflower properties. As his contract called for shipping the ore in 50-ton carload lots, it was necessary neces-sary for Mr. Balsley to accumulate ac-cumulate the material in his various warehouses. He had storage arrangements and . warehouses in Blanding, Moab, Mo-ab, Monticello, Cisco, Thompson, Thomp-son, Green River, Grand Junction, Newcastle, Meeker, Meek-er, Montrose, Naturita, . Dove Creek and Egnar. From Small Producers "I bought ore from more scattered all over the Colorado Colo-rado Plateau," Balsley stated. sta-ted. He purchased this ore in any size lots, from 25 pounds to a carload which then had to be broken up and sampled by hand. "I have had as many as 55 separate lots of ore in a single carload," he recounted. recount-ed. "And every bit of it had to be sacked in 100-pound bags, or thereabouts." He then had to blend, on paper, the various lot going into a carload so that the required requir-ed minimum grades could be maintained. There was a great deal of difficulty in determining ' . . --.. - . .v.. -. -.. -.... 4 .... - . - . . ......... - v - . ... .( , . . , ..." . r '-. I "v . i- ........ . v " . .., f r x ..- v y' .-1 i ',. i , . . Y' r - - i V x . "i ' i ' " . ! , i - : 1 . - :sf ......-:. .. - i ! Howard Balsley and his spectroscope which he used during early uranium days in this artea. Radifjm emanations cause an enclosed silver leaf to dhaw down cross .a scale which makes it possible to determine the amount of uranium in an (ore sample. The instrument is the predecessor of the Geiger counter, and more accurate, Balsley staid. He acquired ac-quired it in 1929. which lots to blend together, Balsley said, because of the purchases being on a sliding slid-ing scale' price list. So be acquired an electroscope, which, he said in pis speech, is more accurate in determining deter-mining the actual grade of ore than is a Geiger counter. Over 6,003 Samples "I actually have more than 6,000 pulverized samples of ore I have bought during the eleven years I was doing business with Vitro," Mr. alsley said. With his electroscope elec-troscope Balsley could arrive ar-rive fairly close at an estimate esti-mate of the uranium content con-tent of a sample and would be able to make an advance ad-vance to the producer. Vitro Manufacturing was using the uranium ore to prepare ceramic colors used in potteries and glass factories. fac-tories. Vitro, Balsley said, made 26 different shades of greens, browns, reds and yellows from uranium ore. They also used considerable unfused vanadium red cake in their ceramic colors. In addition to this Vitro extracted the canadic acid from the ore with which they supplied steel mills in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. They also recovered the radium ra-dium from this ore which was shipped to Philadelphia where it was prepared for insertion into cancerous tissue. tis-sue. ' Paid for Both Ores "During the eleven years I was affailiated with Vitro, I was the only ore buyer on the Colorado Plateau who paid for both the uranium and vanadium ore," Balsley commented. During most of this time, other firms were paying only for the vanadium content in the ore. Balsley spoke of the several sev-eral times when the uranium-vanadium market changed chan-ged rapidly, putting him immediately im-mediately out of business. This happened when a rich strike of pitchblende ore in Belgian Congo was made. Another time Balsley discussed discus-sed was when he had thought he had a promising market for his vanadium ores but a discovery in South America caused him to go out of business. bus-iness. Moab Buying S'ation In 1912, he said, the Government Gov-ernment set up the Metais Reserve Company, deciding that it needed to procure a lot of vanadium in a hurry. Balsley, at this time, Wc.s in charge fo the Moab buying buy-ing station which . was located lo-cated just south of the old cemetery. He was authorized authoriz-ed to accept all the vanadium vanad-ium ore he could get and many thousands of tons of this type ore were delivered., "The ore received here at the Moab Buying Station," Balsley said, "was trucked through to Durango where the U. S. Vanadium Company Com-pany had' a plant that extracted ex-tracted the vanadium from the ore." In 1944 the Government gave orders to cease buying vanadium ore at midnight on February 28. Balsley had considerable tonnage of ore accumulated at Dove Crek which had a good vanadium content. Just Before Midnight "I got the last load of that ore delivered to the Dove Creek stock pile at exactly ex-actly five minutes before midnight," Balsley said. Later in 1944 and early in 1915 the Atom Bomb program pro-gram required uranium. The project was handled by the Manhatten District, with headquarters in New York.- "After the bombs were dropped in Japan," Mr. Balsley Bals-ley related, the Manhatten District evolved into the Atomic Energy Commission and the headquarters was moved to Washington. In 1945 the Government comandeored all of the uranium ur-anium in the nation and took over the operation of all plants at which uranium was handled for any purpose. pur-pose. "The Vitro plant near Pittsburgh," he said, "was taken over, a high fence was built around it and a heavy guard was placed on 24-hour duly, A carload or two cf ore I had at the plant that had not been settled for was taken over and evenually paid for." Mr. Balsley recalled tha; as late as January 1957, no program had been set up by the newly-created Atomic Energy Commission for handling han-dling the uranium-bearing ores of the West. Meet in Washington It was arranged for Mr. Fcndnll Sitton, a prominent uranium ore producer of Dove Creek and Mr. Balsley to meet wi:h the Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, Wash-ington, D.C. in February of that year. Balsley told how key Washington uranium personnel were escorted to the meeting chambers under heavy guard and anything pertaining to uranium was confidential. "Uranium was not even mentioned by name a code word was used instead," he said. Later that year during a second trip to Washington, Balsley said he was told by a member of the Atomic Energy En-ergy Commission that "there just isn't enough uranium in the west to be of interest." A letter to Mr. Balsley al-mos al-mos a year later from Sen. Ed C. Johnson stated that he and Sen. Millikin "had a long, hard fight for recognition recog-nition of our uranium production pro-duction possibilities." The Atomic Energy Commission Com-mission finally initiated an extensive and thorough exploration ex-ploration program which led to the "historical and long-to-be remembered uranium boom of the 1950's." |